Haunted hotel guide · Kennebunkport, Maine

The Haunted Tides Inn By-The-Sea, Kennebunkport: Emma Foss and Room 25

A shingled 1899 beach inn across the road from Goose Rocks Beach, where the woman who built it is said to keep a close eye on every owner and every guest.

By The Haunted Rooms Team · Updated November 2026 · How we rate hotels

2.8/5Haunted Rooms Score

1899Year built

Room 25Emma's old room

Check availabilityMeet the ghosts

The Tides Beach Club sits on the edge of Goose Rocks Beach, the long, quiet stretch of sand a few miles north of Kennebunkport’s Dock Square. For most of its life it was the Tides Inn By-The-Sea, and that is still the name most people search for when they look up its ghost. The building went up in 1899 as the New Belvidere Inn for Emma Foss, to a design by the Portland architect John Calvin Stevens, and it has been taking summer guests ever since.

Today it is a stylish boutique hotel run by the Kennebunkport Resort Collection, with a seafood dining room and bar, bright beach-house rooms and a front porch that looks straight out to the water. Long before the makeover, though, owners and guests were telling the same story, and the hotel’s own Halloween events still tell it: Emma Foss never really left. Here is what has been reported, where the stories cluster, and what to know before you book.

The ghost of the Tides Inn By-The-Sea

Emma Foss, the builder who stayed

Emma Foss was the inn’s original owner, and she ran it as a summer hotel for beachgoers. After her time it changed hands several times, and each new owner made changes of their own. That is where the story begins. The version the hotel’s own operator tells, in promotion for its Halloween trolley tours, is that Emma is still keeping watch over her life’s work: guests hear whispers behind them, furniture is moved in the middle of the night, and lights are seen in the attic, where there are no lights.

Older retellings add that whenever the inn is renovated, Emma makes it clear whether she approves, and that she is welcoming to most guests but lets her feelings be known about anyone she does not like. Locals even joke that Goose Rocks is “Goose Bumps Beach” because of her. None of this has been written down by a witness, so treat it as house lore passed from one owner to the next.

Lights in the attic

The detail the hotel itself repeats most is the attic. People outside the inn at night say they see a light in the attic windows, and the punch line, as the Kennebunkport Resort Collection tells it, is that there are no lights in the attic. If you are staying, step across to the beach after dark and look back at the roofline.

Room 25

Older ghost guides, including earlier versions of this page, name Room 25 as Emma’s own room and the center of the haunting. Guests who stayed there are said to have felt someone in the room with them, and some say they saw a woman standing in the room before she faded away. The most unusual reports describe the covers being pulled up and tucked around them as they fell asleep.

The hotel’s current tellings do not mention room numbers, and rooms have been restyled since those stories were first told, so treat the room number as part of the legend.

Room 29 on the third floor

Room 29, up on the third floor, has its own run of odd experiences. The stories are less specific than those from Room 25, mostly unexplained noises and the feeling of not being alone, but they are also put down to Emma.

The woman in the rocking chair

The front porch is where Emma is said to be seen most openly. Guests and passers-by have described a woman sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, looking out toward the beach, who is gone when they look again. It is the image people remember from the inn: its builder keeping watch over the sand on a summer evening.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Room 25: Named in older ghost guides as Emma’s room, with reports of a woman seen in the room and guests being tucked into bed.
• Room 29: A third-floor room with its own reports of unexplained activity in older accounts.
• The attic: Not guest space, but where lights are said to appear in a part of the building with no lights.
• The front porch: Where Emma has been described sitting in a rocking chair facing the ocean.

History of The Tides Beach Club (formerly Tides Inn By-The-Sea)

Kennebunkport became a fashionable summer resort in the late 1800s, when rail lines and steamers brought city families to the Maine coast. Grand hotels and shingled cottages went up along the shore, and many of the best were designed by John Calvin Stevens (1855 to 1940), the Portland architect best known for the Shingle Style. Stevens designed several Kennebunkport houses in the 1890s and later the Breakwater Court hotel, now the Colony Hotel.

Among his works is the New Belvidere Inn at Goose Rocks Beach, dated to 1899, which is listed in his catalog of buildings as the inn now known as the Tides Inn-by-the-Sea. Emma Foss, remembered locally as its original owner, ran it as a beach hotel. It is a rambling wooden building with deep porches facing the sea.

For most of the twentieth century it was the Tides Inn By-The-Sea, a family-run summer inn known for simple rooms and the view across the road to the beach. In more recent years it was renovated and relaunched as the Tides Beach Club, a boutique hotel in the Kennebunkport Resort Collection, alongside sister properties such as Hidden Pond, with a seafood dining room, a bar and a polished coastal look.

The name and the decor have changed, but the building is the one Emma Foss built. That matters for the ghost story: the owners’ reports of Emma reacting to renovations come from exactly this kind of work, and each round of changes has kept the old house and its porch at the heart of the hotel.

Tips for a haunted stay

• The Tides Beach Club is a seasonal summer hotel; check opening dates before you plan an off-season trip.
• Ask whether Room 25 still carries its old number when you book. Rooms have been restyled, so confirm with the hotel directly.
• Spend an evening on the front porch facing the beach, where Emma is said to sit, then walk across to the sand and look back at the attic windows.
• In October, check whether the hotel is running its haunted trolley tour, which starts and ends at the Tides with a happy hour beforehand.
• Book a table in the dining room even if you stay elsewhere; the seafood and the porch view are the draw.
• Kennebunkport is busy from June to October. Book summer and fall weekends well ahead.
• Pair your stay with the Captain Fairfield Inn in town, another inn with a friendly resident ghost.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Captain Fairfield Inn, Kennebunkport: a sea captain’s 1813 mansion with a kindly captain in the basement
• LimeRock Inn, Rockland: a Queen Anne doctor’s house with figures on the stairs
• The Lucerne Inn, Dedham: a lakeside inn where Room 8’s door will not stay shut
• Haunted hotels in Maine

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• The Tides Beach Club: official site
• Kennebunk, Kennebunkport and Arundel Chamber: The Tides Beach Club haunted trolley tours
• Go Kennebunks: weekly events newsletter, October 20, 2023 (PDF)
• Visit Maine: ME Haunted
• Wikipedia: John Calvin Stevens (list of works)

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